“You Get Rid of Them All, Where Would Fargo Be?” City Releases Refugee Resettlement Report

The report explores information including local refugee costs, accountability, and economic impact

FARGO, N.D. — The refugee resettlement report Fargo city commissioners requested in October is finally released.

The report explores information including local refugee costs, accountability, and economic impact.

“I got my citizenship recently,” shared Ayat Hussein, a former refugee.

Immigrants and refugees make up a small part of our community.

“We’re not talking about roads and bridges here; we’re talking about real people,” said Barry Nelson, a member of the Fargo Human Relations Commission,

For the last 5 months the Fargo Human Relations Commission has been researching the total impact of refugee settlement.

After questions and concerns were raised, the request for the report came from the Fargo City Commission back in October.

“We along with some community volunteers have been talking to people in the community, looking at research that is local, national and international,” Nelson said.

The report finds that in 2014, people who were born out of the country contributed 542.8 million dollars to the metro economy.

“What is not positive you know? America is an immigrant nation,” said Fauzia Hader, with the FM Refugee Advisory Council.

In addition to the spending, they found refugees are creating an overall positive impact by filling jobs.

“Today, 65% of our employees are immigrants,” said Mike Prekel, with Cardinal IG.

“This is truly a good reflection of the community, both people who have been here a long time and people who have been here a short time,” said Nelson

One of the first announcements made at the meeting was that  Commissioner Dave Piepkorn, who pushed for these reports would not be able to attend.

One of his concerns was that they city had no say in how many refugees Lutheran Social Services brings to Fargo.

“One of our recommendations is make sure you’re at those meetings, they do talk numbers passed, they talk numbers projected, they really lay out a well–defined plan,” said Nelson.

The meeting did not have time allotted for public comment.

However, members of the human relations commission hope the conversation doesn’t end.

“I don’t think we want to brush over that there are problems, that there are unmet needs, that there are things that we could do, we need to address the concern that the public raises.”

The report stated that because of the number of refugees in our local workforce and the revenue they create, decreasing the number of people resettling would negatively impact the city.

“You get rid of them all, where would Fargo be,” asked Hader.

Commissioner Piepkorn was out of town and has not responded to our request for a comment.

You can find the full report released by the city here.